


Iron, Clover

by Anonymous



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Friendship, Light Angst, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 11:25:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17140892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: It's naive to think that love will save them all and solve all their problems, but a little friendship certainly makes things more bearable.





	Iron, Clover

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SlowBrass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SlowBrass/gifts).



The sad thing is, outside of his little bubble of odd and dangerous and unnatural, Adelard Dekker didn't exactly have friends. He used to, before...just before. But it was difficult, maintaining relationships with people who didn't know everything you knew, who you were terrified you might tip over into your new life that consisted of rather more monsters than you wanted the neighbor who made you Christmas cookies to deal with, because how exactly is poor Doris supposed to fight off the incarnation of lizard-brain terror with gingerbread men? She isn't, so Adelard moved and missed her cookies every December from a safe distance.

  
So, no, Adelard didn't have normal friends, anymore. And he could hardly be said to have abnormal friends, either - Gertrude had been the closest, and she was dead. He had been fond of Gerard, in an absent, maybe-under-better-circumstances kind of way, and _he_ was dead, too. Salesa was more of a contact than a friend. Rosie liked him well enough, but Rosie liked everyone, and she straddled the line between innocent and embroiled so precariously that Adelard was loath to endanger her balancing act any more than her career choices already had.

  
Maybe that was why, when all the pieces slotted together, the explosion and Bouchard's arrest and the offhanded mention of the mysteriously injured Archivist in one of the articles about said arrest - maybe that was why he went to the hospital, when he finally put together the outline of what happened.

  
The man who had replaced Gertrude looked horrible, though he was also technically dead, so maybe that was a harsh judgement on Adelard's part. It had been utter hell trying to get in to see him - his case was bizarre, his room high security, and it was only Adelard's... _unique_ skillset that had convinced the nurse to let him up in the first place. So maybe Adelard had been expecting someone more impressive, someone who had some of the steel to him that Gertrude had had. The man on the bed was grey and motionless and if Adelard didn't know better, he'd say he could snap his neck and end him right there, if he wanted.

  
"Hello, Archivist," he said out loud, and sat in the chair by his bed. There were flowers wilting gently on the windowsill, a book of poetry resting on his bedside table. "Someone misses you."

  
He was flipping through the poetry when the door opened. "Who are you?" He looked up; the young man standing in the doorway had a bouquet of flowers clutched in one hand, as if he intended to use them as a weapon if he needed to. There were shadows beneath his eyes, a redness there that spoke of too many sleepless nights, likely sad and lonesome ones. But his jaw was set and there was iron in his gaze, and Adelard smiled.

  
"Adelard Dekker," he said, replacing the book on the table. "I wanted to visit the Archivist."

  
"Why?"

  
Adelard paused, turned the question over in his mind, and answered with one of his own. "Did he stop the Unknowing?"

  
The young man stared at him, inched carefully into the room and snicked the door shut behind him. "Yes," he said, guarded and cautiously curious.

  
Adelard nodded. "Good." He turned to look at the man in the hospital bed again. His eyes rolled beneath closed lids. "Well. Good for us, at least."

  
"You were...friends with Gertrude?" the man asked. He stood at the foot of the bed as if unwilling to cross over the Adelard's side of the room; Adelard passed him the vase, an invitation to swap out the flowers and a gesture of goodwill.

  
"You could say that," Adelard said, taking the vase back along with its new, livelier occupants. "I didn't get your name."

  
"Oh!" said the man, fiddling with the wilting flowers. "Right, uh - Martin. Sorry." He floundered for a moment before dumping the flowers into the trash, then stiffening, as if he had just remembered he wasn't going to be polite to the mysterious stranger in his friend's hospital room. "Why are you here?" he snapped.

  
"I thought it might be a good time to meet Gertrude's replacement," Adelard said plainly. "And you got Bouchard arrested."

  
Martin looked pleased at that, a smile half flickering over his features before he caught himself. "Well - not just me, I had help."

  
"That's good," Adelard said, and again that little half-smile lit up Martin's face. "It's more than Gertrude managed, but - " Martin's face fell, and Adelard hated himself a little for causing it. (Oh no.) "That won't be enough on its own, you know," Adelard said, very gently. "I can help you. I was helping Gertrude."

  
"Yeah," Martin said. "I mean, I heard the tapes."

  
Adelard nodded - of course there were tapes. He wondered if Gertrude had recorded them or if the man lying before him had. If this new Archivist knew who he was. If he considered him an ally, or a potential ally, or if he was another monster for the pile.

  
"Peter Lukas runs the Institute now," Martin said, and Adelard looked up sharply.

  
"Lukas? You said you have people helping you?"

  
"Well - fewer, now," Martin stammered. "But...Melanie and Basira - "

  
Adelard rapped his fingers on the bedside table. He knew most of the Lukases personally; he couldn't say he had a favorite, but if he did, Peter certainly wouldn't be in the running. (Maybe Evan, but _he_ was dead - Adelard was staring to pick up on a theme in his relationships.) "Keep them close," Adelard said. "The Lonely is a nasty one. It will sneak up on you."

  
"Yeah, I think I picked up on that," Martin said, a touch sarcastically. "I'll...try. They kind of have their own...stuff." He waved an absent hand, and when he looked down at the Archivist, there was a terrible chasm of isolation in his expression. (Oh _no.)_

  
"Come to dinner with me, Martin," Adelard found himself saying. Martin looked up at him, the line of a frown between his brows. "We can talk. Doesn't have to be about work."

  
"Work," Martin repeated. "Is that what this is?" He made an encompassing gesture, at the Archivist, the room at large, Adelard.

  
"You need a friend," Adelard said. "It's the best way to ward off a Lukas."

  
Martin regarded him carefully. "Is it that obvious?" he asked, finally, a sulk touching the edge of his tone.

  
It was. Adelard didn't want to say that, though, and it wasn't as if he was really in a position to judge. "Let's help each other," he said instead, and Martin's expression softened into a full, genuine, sweet smile. _(Oh no.)_

  
"Yeah, okay," he said. "Dinner." There was a pause, a brief moment hovering between them, before Martin asked, "Should _I_ say the line about this being the start of a beautiful friendship, or did you want to?"

  
In spite of himself, Adelard smiled.

* * *

 

The Archivist didn't wake, and didn't wake, and didn't wake. Bouchard's trial was delayed, over and over, wrapped up in red tape. The Institute became locked in the quietest power struggle Adelard had ever seen, between Peter Lukas and the ragged remains of the archival staff. And as the months dragged on, Adelard stopped thinking of the dreaming Archivist as Gertrude's replacement and started thinking of him as Jon, Martin's friend.

  
A friend of a friend. Go figure.

  
It was winter and threatening snow when Martin called. "Jon's awake," he said without preamble.

  
"Is he all right? Should I--"

  
"No," Martin said quickly, then slower: "No. Not yet. I...he...he's disoriented. I think it would be a lot."

  
"Of course," Adelard said. "Is that all?" he prompted; on the other end of the line, Martin let out a long sigh.

  
"Can I...come see you?" Martin asked. "It's just. It's a lot."

  
"Of course," Adelard said again.

  
"I'll be a bit," Martin added, his voice apologetic, as if he were looking at a clock and wincing over the hour. "It's fine if you don't--"

  
"Take your time," Adelard said placidly. "I'll be up."

  
"Okay. Don't feel bad if you fall asleep. I'll call again before I leave."

  
Martin's worry still felt foreign. Everyone Adelard had known before had been hardened, tempered into something cold and sharp. The steel in Martin's spine was still wrapped in things soft and human. It was more endearing than it had any right to be.

  
When the knock came three hours later, Adelard checked the peephole and casually replaced the heavy bat he kept in the hallway before he opened the door. "I'm sorry I didn't call," Martin said as he hurried inside. "I had to make some phone calls and my phone died, and I didn't think of using a phone at the hospital until after I'd left..."

  
"It's all right. How is he?"

  
Martin paused, gnawing at his lower lip. "He...I don't know," he said. Adelard said nothing, ushered him into the kitchen and began boiling water for tea as Martin continued. "He seemed...I don't know. Different? I mean he's been comatose for months now, and it wasn't as if we had much chance to talk before the doctors showed up, but..." He paused, tapping at the kitchen table. "What...what do you know about the Watcher's Crown?"

  
Adelard turned from where he was retrieving mugs, eyebrow arched. "Did he mention it?"

  
"No, not...not tonight. I'd heard of it on the tapes." Martin sighed. "I know it's...it's what the Eye wants. What the...Institute wants."

  
"I don't know the details," Adelard said briskly. "Gertrude was...tight-lipped, in that matter. In most matters."

  
"I think..." Martin took in a deep breath. "I think you shouldn't meet Jon. Yet." Adelard passed Martin a mug and waited for him to elaborate. Martin pulled lightly on the string of his tea bag, his mouth twisting in displeasure, not meeting Adelard's gaze.

  
"You don't trust him?" Adelard prompted, when Martin said nothing.

  
"Not that!" Martin said quickly, looking up. "I mean...Jon's my friend. I care about him. I'm just...worried about him."

  
"And you think our meeting would be ill-advised?"

  
"Just until he seems like himself again," Martin said, looking away again.

  
"People claimed by these powers..." Adelard began, then reconsidered. "It is a choice," he said plainly. "It isn't an easy choice, but from what you have told me, our Archivist friend is a stubborn man. I have every faith that he will be ready to meet me with time."

  
It wasn't even a lie. Doing what Gertrude had done was difficult and dangerous. But they had stopped the Unknowing and dethroned Elias Bouchard and now Martin was holding his own against Peter Lukas, and that wasn't nothing. Perhaps this ragtag group Adelard found himself on the fringes of lacked the naked iron Gertrude had possessed, or the cool detachment Gerard had striven for, and perhaps they were not the glowing found family Martin longed for, but maybe their hopeless, messy humanity would be worth something, all its own.

  
"He didn't have a heartbeat when I left," Martin said.

  
Ah. Well. That _was_ a bit alarming. "I have no problem remaining your confidant for as long as you feel necessary," Adelard said, diplomatically.

  
They drank their tea in silence; Martin pointed out that it had started to snow in soft little flurries; slowly the conversation shifted to things less bleak. When Martin stood to leave, Adelard rose with him, walked him to the door.

  
"Thank you, for everything," Martin said, hovering in the hallway. "I feel...better, I guess, about everything. Knowing you're around." He smiled sheepishly. "Less alone."

  
"Anything you need," Adelard said. "Be safe, Martin."

  
Martin nodded, his expression hardening into something determined. "I'll try," he said firmly. Then, just as firmly: "I think you'll really get along with Jon." And with that, he nodded again and vanished into the snow, his spine straight. Adelard watched him go, a smile tugging on his own lips, and nodded once to himself before shutting the door against the cold.

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas! :D


End file.
